Great Throughts Treasury

"The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."

"The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and the dread of poverty."

"The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down."

"The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity."

"The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw before."

"The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities."

"The worst evils are those that never arrive."

"There are charms made only for distant admiration."

"The worst vice of a fanatic is his sincerity."

"The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty."

"There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful."

"There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex."

"There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either."

"There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money."

"There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can, in this state, receive no answer; Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? And since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?"

"There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain."

"There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten."

"There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed."

"There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government."

"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."

"There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow."

"There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation."

"There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly wrought out by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators."

"There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business."

"There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other."

"There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it."

"There is little peace or comfort in life if we are always anxious as to future events. - He that worries himself with the dread of possible contingencies will never be at rest."

"There is no wisdom in useless and hopeful sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved, nor will by me, at least, be thought worthy of esteem."

"There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

"There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow."

"There is no part of history so generally useful as that which relates to the progress of the human mind, the gradual improvement of reason, the successive advances of science, the vicissitudes of learning and ignorance, the extinction and resuscitation of arts, and the revolutions of the intellectual world. - If accounts of battles and invasions are peculiarly the business of princes, the useful and elegant arts are not to be neglected, and those who have kingdoms to govern have understandings to cultivate."

"There is no tracing the connection of ancient nations but by language; therefore I am always sorry when any language is lost, for languages are the pedigree of nations."

"There is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not."

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern."

"There is nothing too little for so little a creature as man. - It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

"There is nothing yet contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

"There is something in obstinacy which differs from every other passion. Whenever it fails, it never recovers, but either breaks like iron, or crumbles sulkily away, like a fractured arch. Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their suffering and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal."

"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

"There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other."

"There lurks in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature has given him something peculiar to himself."

"There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman."

"There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good."

"This man [Chesterfield] I thought had been a lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among lords."

"These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes."

"This world, where much is to be done and little to be known."

"This mournful truth is everywhere confess'd, Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd."

"Those only who live with a man can write his life with any genuine exactness and discrimination, and few people who have lived with a man know what to remark about him."

"Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often granted upon easier terms."

"Those that have done nothing in life are not qualified to judge those that have done little."

"Those who, in the confidence of superior capacities or attainments, neglect the common maxims of life, should be reminded that nothing will supply the want of prudence; but that negligence and irregularity, long continued will make knowledge useless, with ridiculous, and genius contemptible."